Let's see, I need to think ahead. Best start saving for a brand new computer whose purchase will coincide with the release date. I have a nasty feeling my laptop's integrated Intel graphics card will commit seppuku if I so much as wave the disc at it.

Never played the first Shogun, but I have played every other in the series. Rome is still my favourite, and although they did a lot of things right in Empire, they did even more wrong. Napoleon fixed a lot of them, but guys shooting at each-other for 5 minutes is still boring (cannons are awesome tho).

When the hell will we get Rome 2? They should just focus on making an awesome game engine with everything RIGHT, and then do expansions for all time periods for it.

Wow if I ever got this game I wouldn't know who to choose, Hojo, Chosokabe, Oda, Takeda, Uesugi. I hope this game will have historical battles like Nagashino and Sekigahara. Being able to fight in those would be awesome, imagine Sekigahara with the Total War engine, thats EPIC!

My respect for the series has slowly been going downhill after barbarian invasion to be perfectly honest. Realism and combat authenticity have been completely thrown out the window in favour of a "cinematic" experience and competitive online play.

L-J-F:My respect for the series has slowly been going downhill after barbarian invasion to be perfectly honest. Realism and combat authenticity have been completely thrown out the window in favour of a "cinematic" experience and competitive online play.

Really? I would argue that the series has gotten more realistic and more combat authentic. I mean, just look at screenshots between, say Rome and Empire. Or look at how the micro-managment both in hte battlefield and outside it has progressed.

Okay, am I the only one who loves Empire to death? It's only gotten better with patches that have made the A.I better both strategically and tactically, and with the astoundingly awesome blood and smoke mod (which adds smoke and blood, shockingly enough), the game is really really really good and eats up hours of my time.

But then again, I've always loved the tumultuous time of the 18th century...

The only thing that would make that better would be if they added dragons.

heeeey...

All right, technically the Napoleonic Wars, but whatever.

EDIT: Actually, addendum, Empire is only followed by Shogun, which I love almost as much.

EDIT 2: Didn't like Rome: Total War. It was a fine game, well made and such...but I just hate Rome. Like, the place. Does this make me a bad person?

Namewithheld:Okay, am I the only one who loves Empire to death? It's only gotten better with patches that have made the A.I better both strategically and tactically, and with the astoundingly awesome blood and smoke mod (which adds smoke and blood, shockingly enough), the game is really really really good and eats up hours of my time.

But then again, I've always loved the tumultuous time of the 18th century...

The only thing that would make that better would be if they added dragons.

heeeey...

All right, technically the Napoleonic Wars, but whatever.

EDIT: Actually, addendum, Empire is only followed by Shogun, which I love almost as much.

EDIT 2: Didn't like Rome: Total War. It was a fine game, well made and such...but I just hate Rome. Like, the place. Does this make me a bad person?

First off, No you just don't like Rome, and I too love Empire. It should have been well made when it first came out but the patches came and fixed most of the issues I had whit it. Have you played Napoleon Total War? Its a great game and looks better than Empire.

Does this mean we finally have someone on staff to write about RTS as a preferred medium?

I have been on the CA forums for years now and am honestly convinced this will be the best iteration of TW that any of us has seen. N:TW showed a much better AI and campaign game, as well as a much better diplomacy and trade system.

This personalization of units sounds absolutely intriguing and I look forward to trying it out myself.

If you too were upset by Empire's mess you would be doing yourself a disservice by missing this game. The community revolted against them for Empire, they themselves said they were embarrassed to give their games to their own friends.

I'm trying my best to get excited about this and it just isn't happening. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the lack of the grand scale and numerous cultures of previous games, maybe it's the horrendous screw-ups CA made in Empire, maybe it's the fact that without the allure of building a glorious intercontinental empire the campaign will probably be fairly flat, or maybe it's just that I never played Shogun and therefore have no nostalgia to make me squee. The battlefield AI of Empire was so awful that I had no desire to play the battles any more, which just left the main campaign. And when it comes to just pure grand strategy there are much better games out there. On the other hand, it'll be pretty with big spectacular battles and I like Japan. I'll probably buy it eventually, but I'll be grumpy about it.

Honestly, I'm probably still just bitter that I'll never get a Three Kingdoms: Total War.

Namewithheld:I might play Napoleon...but...I heard that it does not have a grand campaign. I hate that! The grand campaign IS the Total War series, for me at least.

Napoleon does have a grand campaign, you can play as France, England, Austria, Prussia or Russia. It is smaller than the grand campaign in Empire (Just Europe) but it has a lot more cities on the map and the turns are cut down to 2 weeks. They give you more missions to do but you can ignore most of them and still win. I played as England and turned on the Grand Coalition (Austria, Prussia and Russia) and helped France conquer Europe then I conquered France and won.